San Jose and pro Sports

The minute the Giants broke ground on Pac Bell, um, SBC, um ATT park, major league baseball in santa clara county died. Gonzalez and Purdy did nobody any favors by playing to this fantasy at the expense of other more practical projects. It was political pandering to people’s wish fantasies of the worst sort.

Now, I don’t believe the Quakes WERE saveable. Asnchutz didn’t want it to happen on the city’s terms, which is too bad. The San Jose Sports Authority had a good, viable plan to fix up Spartan Stadium at a reasonable cost, but once again, a rich person wanted a city to subsidize their new building. There likely never was a deal there.

But given the quality of decisions going on in the city these days ($31 million handed over to the county to get out of a tar-baby of a lawsuit? No matter how you wrap pearls around that one, it’s a smelly pig that won’t be housebroken) — maybe chasing fantasies is best; it limits the amount of money they can waste in the administration.

Having seen the odd priorities in the Parks and Recreation Department through my experience with the Young People’s Theater, I do wonder about what the city is doing in sports. San Jose has lots of good schools and parks with sport fields, why does it feel the need to have a big name team? What do we gain from the Grand Prix?